Firearms and Famous Last Words
by aghamora
Summary: This is what happens when we play with guns, children. - - Oneshot.


**Summary: **This is what happens when we play with guns, children. - - Oneshot

**Disclaimer: **I own nothing you recognize.

* * *

**_Firearms and Famous Last Words_**

* * *

"_The hell do you have a gun in here for?"_

"_Jade, we're supposed to be working on a - Wait, why are you going through there?"_

"_I'm bored. This is a boring project."_

"_Put down the gun!"_

"_Chill out, Vega. Why is this even in here?"_

"_My dad's a – Hey, don't point it at me!"_

"_God, relax. The clip's out, and I doubt this thing is loaded."_

"_Jade-"_

_Bang!_

* * *

"Beck," his name comes out of her mouth as she pushes her way into his RV, and it sounds like the feeble, pitiable squeak of a mouse, like an utterly defenseless creature just seconds before it is crushed by something much bigger than it. She isn't crying, but she's damn close to it.

_The gun, the gun…Hide the evidence…They'll never need to know._

"Jade?" She can't quite hear what he's saying, for it's all fading to the background and sounds like mere white noise to her ears: calming yet maddening white noise. She knows his words are probably an inquiry as to why she's in his RV late at night and shaking like a madwoman with a small stain of blood on her left hand, and why she seems to be hazardously close to hysteria, but she offers up no answer.

"Y-you know how, w-when a supernova e-explodes and k-kills everything around it, it leaves behind a-a black hole?" she paces around the room and moves her hands crazily as she talks. She doesn't understand why she's saying what she's saying; it doesn't make much (if any) sense. In fact, everything she does seems to have lost its reason. At this nonsensical and uncharacteristic babbling, Beck's eyebrows move upwards, and his wary eyes narrow into tiny, half-moon slits.

"Yeah. Babe, what does that-"

"_Kills everything around it_," she echoes her unsuccessful analogy softly, almost too softly for him to hear. He puts a hand on her shoulder, but it's not there for more than five seconds before she rips it off violently (how can he stand to touch a killer anyway?), and when she touches his hand, a stripe of the blood is drawn onto his palm. And as he holds it out before his eyes, he sees the rusty color and nothing else, and realizes that she's done something _very_ bad.

"_Kills, kills, kills_…" she says the scary word over and over and over, as if she's misplaced her wits and is searching wildly for them but cannot find. She's really frightening him (this better not be a practical joke because there's nothing practical about it), for he's never genuinely doubted his girlfriend's sanity until now. She's never given him good reason to.

(She's never shot anyone before, either.)

"What happened, Jade?" He won't use any term of endearment right now. He knows this is awful, even if he doesn't know what, exactly, is going on, "Jade, tell me." When she doesn't speak up and only keeps trembling and muttering strange things under her breath, he raises his voice, "_Tell me what happened, Jade_!"

"K-k…I killed her. I-I fucking _killed_ her, Beck!" He takes her shoulders and looks at her as if she's about to kill him, too. Tears begin to spill from her eyes once he cups her face in between his hands, and the tears of a killer - of a _murderess_ - trickle onto his fingers and taint them with runny darkness.

"_Who_? I swear to god, Jade-"

"T-T-Tori. _She's gone_. She's dead, she's dead_, she's dead_. I…I sh-_shot_ her." His hands drop from her right away, and she's never seen him more horrified, more terrified, more disgusted with her than he is now. He backs away until he looks like he's going to disappear into the wall if he goes any further, and even then, he still looks like he would keep going if he could. Beck's mind refuses to register what she's saying, because _it doesn't make sense._ She isn't a murderer. She's Jade West; she's hostile and argumentative and nasty but she isn't a _murderer_. The idea is laughable, but she's not laughing and something tells him that he shouldn't be either.

"No…" his throat is tightening up and it takes a great deal of effort just to inhale, and it feels like it must be at least a hundred degrees in the RV. Where is the air-conditioning again? He'd probably remember if he weren't so horrified.

"I-I swear I didn't know the gun was loaded! I was just…just messing around and-and, _god_, it was _loaded_ but I…I…The-the fucking clip was out; it wasn't supposed t-to _fire_…I didn't mean to! I _swear_! You-you have to believe me! I didn't think it would fire! _You have to believe me_! You…you believe me…right?" her voice grows hoarse with sheer desperation. She moves her feet toward him rapidly and fists his ugly plaid shirt within her shaky hands, as if his trust will be her only deliverance in the fateful days to come. However, the only thing he does in reply is mutely tug her left hand off of his shirt and turn it over so he can see the crimson stain on the other side, so he can get a glimpse of the blood on her hands. The sight makes his stomach turn.

"You…T-Tori…" He backs away from her again, this time toward the exit. He's looking at her like she's a monster, and she can't stand it, even if she knows very well that she is because only _monsters_ kill people. Only sick, sick people take someone else's life.

"Beck, please!" she calls out to her boyfriend – her _last hope_ - but it's too late and the door slams closed… and he is gone.

_But he believes her, right?_

* * *

The cops come to her in the middle of the night, and she doesn't ever stop shuddering when they sit her down and ask her the questions she knows all the answers to.

_Did you happen to be at Victoria Vega's house this evening?_

"Yeah. What's it to you?"

_Are you aware that Miss Vega was shot and killed today?_

"…"

_Do you have any idea how that happened, Miss West?_

"I…"

_May I remind you, Miss West, that lying to the police is a crime?_

"I-I…I didn't mean to! I didn't think the gun was loaded! I swear to god, it wasn't on _purpose_!"

_It wasn't on purpose, Miss West?_

"Yes!"

_Are you sure about that?_

"Of_ course_! You have to believe me!"

* * *

Manslaughter.

The nauseating word resounds in her mind, it's ricochet worse than anything she's ever heard before. It seems to be a never-ending echo; one she fears will never stop bouncing off the sides of her skull. The vile line of letters will not go away, though, no matter how many times she hits her head on the wall and tries to force the word out of her brain. It was an accident; that's _all_ it was! How can they label it something as awful as _slaughter_ when it was just an unfortunate mishap? Oh, she swears she didn't mean to do it! It's not her fault!

_Are you sure about that?_

_Yes_, she's sure! It was a fucking accident and nothing more and she never, ever, _ever_ meant to take Tori's life away from her. Even though the girl was just inches away from taking all Jade had: her boyfriend, her friends, her lead roles – it doesn't matter! She never would've gone and _killed_ her! Even if Tori was a rising star and she was a deadly, fated supernova who hated ever fiber of her shiny rival's perfect little being…It _never_ would have come down to cold-blooded _murder._

But she swears she didn't know it was loaded! It was just an accident!

_You've got to believe her!_

* * *

They tell her she can't leave her house with straight faces, as if it means absolutely nothing to them that they're damning her with their very words. They don't call it _house arrest_, but she knows full well that's what it is anyway because that's what happens to people like her: they get shut away and then they never see the sun again.

With this looming thought foremost in mind, she lies in her bed with her drapes closed, under piles and piles of covers even though it's warm outside, and shakes like there's no tomorrow, her arms and legs and shoulders quaking roughly until her skin feels raw and her bones feel as if they'll snap if she dares to move even an inch. There is no tomorrow, anyway - not in her world. Beck can't love a murderess like her. Cat can't be a best friend to someone who has killed her other best friend. Sinjin can't crush on someone as dangerous as she's become. Shit, she knows it's bad when she's lamenting the fact that even _Sinjin_ won't care what happens to her.

So, she lies there and shakes, and seldom begins to laugh, as if the earth has decided to play some sort of sick joke on her, as if someone is going to pop out at any moment and tell her that this is all just a trick. She never turns on the television because she knows that the news is probably swarming with stories about the murder, and she never reads anything because every sentence her eyes take in – even the happy ones - remind her of blood and death and darkness. She hardly eats, hardly ever gets up, hardly really thinks about anything other than a sudden gunshot and a scream and a pool of blood under a cascade of brown hair that stemmed from a motionless body.

They won't let her go to Tori's funeral, and although her body is shivering horribly when she slides out of bed, she manages to sneak out her window and climb down the vine outside until her feet collide with the ground. She _needs_ to see Beck again, and she knows he'll be there. Hell, all of Hollywood Arts will probably be there, mourning the talented, dead girl and detesting the killer who ended her short life. She takes off running until she reaches the church, and only then does she take notice of the footsteps behind her, and the shouts of _'stop! halt!' _She shoves through all the mourners dressed in black without seeing anyone's face. It's all a shadowy blur to her: the pushing, the crying, the screams that cut through the air like a string of gunshots. She locks eyes with Beck when she reaches the front of the crowd, but he looks away. She locks eyes with Cat too, but she hastily breaks the gaze as well.

She realizes that they all hate her. They all _despise_ her. The realization immobilizes her body, and she stands there in front of the crowd of people helplessly while it all soaks in. What other option have they, really? A hopeless, tragic sob escapes from her lips, triggered by the terrible understanding that no one can _ever_ love her again. It's true, for she's the evil one slayed the hero, the one whom a person would be ostracized for merely _pitying_, let alone _loving_. It all makes perfect sense - even behind her warped eyes – yet she's still resolved to make Beck understand her side of the story. She can't stop until he does, and so she takes another step forward.

"Beck!" she exclaims, seconds before officers catch her arms and try to pull her away. Despite their strong grasps on both her shoulders, she fights as hard as she can, "Beck, you have to believe me! It was an accident! An _accident_! I didn't know it was loaded, Beck, _please_. I never would've shot! _Please_! I'm sorry, so _sorry_!" He looks up at her one final time, and she wants with all her heart for him to tell them to stop holding her back so he can take her in his arms, but his stare is dead, and she thinks that, perhaps, it perished with Tori.

But he could never love a murderess anyway. No one could.

Silently placing his forlorn gaze on the coffin in front of them – the one draped in shiny golden cloth and seeming to almost shine like a star – the last thing Beck Oliver ever says to her is, "It's not me you should be apologizing to." And with that, the very last hope she has in her chest shrivels up and dies once she hears his heartrending words, like a flower planted in bad soil that never had much of a chance of blossoming in the first place. The air is knocked out of her altogether for a moment, and the police take this opportunity to properly secure her arms.

She never does, though. She doesn't see the point in apologizing to a dead girl. Why waste breath when she'll never be heard, anyway? When all she'll really be doing is saying sorry to the cold ground?

As they drag her away, kicking and screaming, she hears the school gossipmongers muttering things like, _'I always knew she was crazy,'_ and _'Poor Tori. I bet it wasn't even an accident,'_ and _'Don't know how Beck ever ended up with _her_. She's a lunatic.' _Oh, but it's all true_. _The worst part is that it isn't just rumors or lies; it's truth. And she figures, in the end, that she's just as dead to everyone there as Tori is.

_It was an accident! Why won't they believe her?_

* * *

Beck doesn't come to her trial.

Tori's family does. Sinjin does, and she doesn't know why (maybe he's desperate enough to be able to love her). And the entire time while she takes the stand, she sees nothing but the cold eyes of the prosecutors, and hears nothing but her raving mantra of, _'It was an accident. I didn't know it was loaded!' _She breaks out screaming and crying and shaking on more than one occasion, frantically calling out for Beck to come save her from this nightmare of lawyers and juries and judges, but he never comes. Often, the bailiff even has to restrain her. She is forced to hear the description of Tori's death so many times that she starts to cover her ears so she doesn't have to listen, but she's never able to totally block it out. The words always seem to wind around her hands and flee into her ears and chip her sanity away with sharp tools of irrefutable truth. It's what she figures she deserves, anyway: a slow, agonizing descent into madness. It comes to the point that she can't even tell night from day – the weeks become a blur, become one long, ceaseless chain of empty hours - but she thinks it doesn't matter any more because they're going to lock her up and then she'll never get to see the light of day again.

Inside, she knows she's gone insane - but at the same time, she knows nothing at all.

_Bang!_

She'd never thought one sound could be so, so horrible.

The whole thing is over unusually quickly, because the situation is quite clear. Tori's death is ruled accidental, and they tell her that she's to plead '_not guilty by reason of insanity,' _so she does without question, because they know what's best for her, right?Inside, she thinks that it's the most comforting – and yet the most terrifying – thing she's ever heard. It's her only escape, but it's also a willing condemnation to a tilted world without reason, without sense, a world in which she has willingly plead lunacy as an excuse for her atrocious crime.

"I am not insane!" she calls out immediately after the verdict is read. She desperately wants to take back her plea, but it's too late for that now (they said it was the best thing to do, but they _lied_). Every head in the courtroom snaps in her direction, "I am not insane! I am not insane! _I am not insane_!"

They have to carry her out, for she never does stop screaming. She tells them that, if only she could see Beck, she would be sane again. If only she could lay eyes on him, everything would be all right! Really, it would!

_Don't you_ _believe her?_

* * *

But nothing is ever right again, and he never visits her in the wicked asylum they lock her up in. They say that it's to help her; she knows that it's only to torment her.

And she never does stop shaking, never does stop asserting that, _'It was an accident! I am not insane!'_ never does stop crying out for one more sight of _him_, pleading for his face, his eyes, his lips. She never does stop thinking about that sudden gunshot and that scream and that pool of blood under that cascade of brown hair stemming from that motionless body. She gets declared legally insane but driven mad as she is, she never does know what that means, exactly. She never does fully realize that she's been put in a straightjacket, never does fully realize that they've put her in solitary confinement, never does realize that everyone she loves virtually abandoned her the moment that goddamn bullet was fired.

And she never does tell anyone that perhaps, maybe, she knew the gun was loaded all along.

_Oh, but you have to believe her!_


End file.
